EU ends biofuel battle to get green energy deal

By Pete Harrison

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union agreed on Thursday a series of ways to promote green energy after resolving a long-running battle over biofuels.

But Italy would not drop its demand to review the legislation in 2014, preventing the European Union from signing off on a deal to get 20 percent of the bloc's energy from renewable sources by 2020.

"We have agreement on everything except the deletion of the review clause," the European Parliament's lead negotiator Claude Turmes told Reuters after closed-door talks that went on until the early hours.

The green energy laws are a major part of an EU package to fight climate change, which it hopes will help spur a global deal with other big emitters like China and the United States.

"Europe faces a moment of truth over the next week on the issue of climate change as to whether this package goes through and goes through with environmental integrity," British climate minister Ed Miliband told reporters.

Until Thursday, debate over biofuels had been deadlocked, holding back other measures to promote wind farms, solar power and energy from tides.

The European Commission proposed in January that 10 percent of road transport fuel should come from renewable sources by 2020. Much of that would come from biofuels, creating a large market that is coveted by exporters such as Brazil and Indonesia, as well as EU farming nations.

But environmentalists said biofuels made from grains and oilseeds were pushing up food prices and forcing subsistence farmers to expand agricultural land by hacking into rainforests and draining wetlands -- known as "indirect land-use change."